Slashdot Mirror
Real Cuts Prices for DRM-Restricted Music
Flint Dragon writes "A story on MSNBC details RealNetworks' next step in converting iPod users from iTunes to their own online music store. Not only can you play music downloaded from their site on your iPod now, you can, for a limited time, purchase music for 50% cheaper (.49/song, 4.99/album)! This is the price that I'm willing to pay for. Too bad it won't last..."
Hopefully step three is supporting Macs. For me, that's the ???? before step 4: Profit!!
Could someone tell me why Apple is so upset about Real being able to its music work in the iPod? Apple has said their Music Store is not meant as a profit center, so isn't it better for them (in the sense of selling more iPods) that the store's compatible with Real?
Of course this is of little interest to me since Real's not supporting Macs and I'm certainly not going to switch to Windows on their behalf.
I don't think Real stockholders are going to think much of the bleeding, and when prices go back to $ 0.99 each I doubt that most people will stay with Real, given their software's general level of obnoxiousness and hard-sell promotion. Apple, for all its faults, has a very classy and nicely done music store I think most people will prefer by a huge margin.
D
so these people are *losing* quite a bit of money on this; or maybe the music industry is pitching in? I am sure they are not really happy w/ iTunes getting as big as it is.
MS conspiracy theorists will have a feast.
*somebody* has to be pitching in... isn't real a fairly small company?
-Facun.How much is RealNetworks losing money from each song they sell? The article mentions an analyst saying they will be losing money. How much of the $0.99 does Apple pay out to the record industry?
Real seems to be implying some kind of guarantee that their music will play on the iPod... Apple has already stated that won't be the case for much longer...
Will users with iPods who buy these cheapo songs be left holding the bag (a bag of useless songs), or will songs they buy and upload to their iPod now work no matter how Apple "updates" their iPod?
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
is the fact that Real has already announced that they will lose more money this quarter because of this stunt. (Here is the link to CBS Marketwatch: http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7b 0A42057C-77BB-4F6A-AA44-3BAF401EFEC9%7d&siteid=mkt w&dist=nbs)
Take a look at their stock price today too and see what investors are thinking about this. (see it on the MSNBC link page). While I like the idea of cheaper music, this really smacks of desperation.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
What the heck is wrong with $0.99 per song? You pay more than that for a bottle of soda, for crying out loud! If you want to be able to LEGALLY download music off the 'net, you need to support valid attempts to bring that to you. As more money flows into these companies from Internet distribution methods, the Internet supporters inside music companies will grow in power (potentially overshadowing those who are trying to stop it).
Once those supporters are in power, the reign of RIAA terror may finally end. Or at least reach an equilibrium similar to the one that existed prior to MP3s.
On a different note, best 99 cents, ever!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Bah! Still ~10x higher than allofmp3.com. And they give you the real non-DRM non-proprietary crap... Even lossless if you like.
And their legality is just 'questionable'.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
lowering the price to $.49 or less per song seems more reasonable to me. people dont understand that by purchasing music online in mp3 (or equiv) format that they are ok with crap sounding music and if they are ok with that, what is going to keep record companies from spending less money on production when they know the music is headed for a compressed format anyway?
spend money here
That's why I only started using iTunes after Hymn came out.
http://hymn-project.org/
It's an intentional loss to promote their software. Right now they're losing about 3-4c a share and this is going to widen those losses by about 1c a share.
I don't think it was a very smart move, to tell the truth, but I suppose I could say it's gutsy.
D
While better audio codecs have been advanced (MP3, ogg, FLAC...) it seems that the real audio format has maintained its position at the end of the pack. While I am not such an audiophile that I feel like researching expert information on audio quality, it seems that I notice a great difference when listening to an .ra file as opposed to an MP3. Getting half the quality for half the price seems like a wash to me. That is, unless they are either distributing music in another format or have advanced their own encoding process. However, even an advance in the Real Audio format seems negligible. While it is nice that the files are currently compatable with the iPod, it still seems Real is taking the "too propritary" road.
Now before I get tossed into the flamebait category, I do understand that iTunes, MusicMatch, and the rest of the competition is fairly proprietary in their own right. But iTunes, and to a degree MusicMatch, are quite a bit less intrusive applications than RealPlayer.
Further, does anyone remember the user privacy sagas that Real has been through? Does anyone really trust Real to safeguard your information? I don't know about the rest of you, but Real lost my trust a long time ago. They could give out $0.01 songs and $0.10 albums, and that alone would scare me away.
Just go here and download songs for mere pennies. No limited time BS. No DRM.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there laws against "predatory pricing"? Deliberately selling your product at a loss in order to undercut the competition, then raising the prices once your market share is big enough?
That's right, I read at +2 and post at +1. Not even I care what I have to say.
Actually, if you read the act this is all fairly permissiable.
However, it is specicificallly talking about taped copies and doesn't deal with digital works.
The digital stuff is a whole different ball game.
However, I can legally tape some stuff and give it to you.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I've always wondered what is going to happen when someone has put a large amount of money and time into a DRM wrapped music library and the player is no longer supported.
If you migrate up to the latest and greatest player do you have to re-purchase your library?
What if Apple changes the iPod transfer format and lets owners who bought music from their site have free upgrades...
The question is what type of consumer protections do you have with this type of music purchase?
RAN
My music growth stopped in the 80's and I haven't heard much these days worth keeping.
I agree with that completely. I have no problem whatsoever with paying 99 cents for a song and I do so when I hear a new song I like.
I'm suprised that the RIAA is allowing this. 4.99 an album is quite a bit less than the $12 or so that cds go for. If I am going to buy an entire album, I usually buy the cd. This might change that though.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Pretty much what I was thinking. It doesn't matter how much better the new real software is, or how cheap they can sell DRM songs. The Real company pissed me off once with it's deceptive business practices, and I will never voluntarilly do business with them again.
Ok, I'm sure this is all covered somewhere at the two sites but...
1. Can we copy the file we bought to different devices (i.e. PC/ipod/mp3 player)?
2. Will it allow us to modify the format to/from mp3/wma/ogg/etc?
3. What is the quality compared with "normal" downloads (from gnutella/limewire/etc)?
4. Can we "re-download" a song if our copy get destroyed/lost/mangled?
5. What other advantages/dis-advantages are there?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Off topic, I know, but that's one of the reasons I like SUSE on the desktop. Real (along with quite a few other plugins) are already configured and ready to use. No nagging.
Apple has already stated this as their intention:
'Stunned' Apple rails against Real's iPod move
Apple threatened to block access to the iPod using Harmony the next time it updates the software used to run the device. The company last week unveiled the fourth generation of the trend-setting music player.
"It is highly likely that Real's Harmony technology will cease to work with current and future iPods," the company said in its statement.
_dan
While I have no intention of buying anything from Real (they don't support Mac OS X with this scheme), and I've never bought anything from iTMS (as I live in Canada), as an iPod owner I'm still somewhat excited -- this may be good for me as an iPod owner inn an indirect way.
Apple has in the last few weeks released two iPod firmware updaters (one of which was released in the past week) -- but both have contained updates only for the 4G iPods. I bought my iPod two months too soon, and thus own the 3G iPod, for which Apple appears to have no interest in providing any software updates for.
However, if things go as many here predict, Real may force Apples hand in pushing out firmware updates for the older iPods to ensure they don't work with Real's system. And to ensure users actually apply these updates, they'll have to offer some form of incentive in the form of new features or other improvements beyond breaking compatible with Real's Harmony.
So if Apple does do something about this, iPod owners (particularily hose of us who don't have the new 4G iPod) may end up winning anyhow :).
Yaz.
Does anyone know if Hymn opens up the Real DRM for iPods? It would be reassuring since Apple can change iPod firmware at will.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
> Best part? Since it's a Russian "broadcast", the RIAA doesn't get any of it. Tasty!
I'm sure the artists, who don't get any of it either, share your opinion, and think it's super tasty that a Russian company is making money off of their work. Good for you.
Not having fullscreen today in a video player is just unacceptable. But on the plus side the player does seem nicer/less bloated. I just checked and I'm still on 8 (whats currently avail in deb sid). So maybe the fullscreen option is finally there in 10. Btw, mplayer will play my realvid files but if you skim through the video it loses sync which doesn't happen in real. Any fix for that?
Which brings up an interesting point: Apple could easily destroy the effectiveness of this clever sale by tossing a one-off feature into an update that ALSO breaks the shit out of Real's hack.
Result? People can't play any of the music they paid for, and Apple can shrug their shoulders. "That's what you get for trusting a hack."
And nobody will ever use Real's service again.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Have you looked at the allofmp3 database? It is very expansive and includes all the current hits that are playing on the radio in the US of A.
So allofmp3 is legal in Russia, because they have a license from the russian equivalent of the RIAA. But do the artists get compensated at all? I always wondered about this. Even if they just get 2 cents per download or something it would be a more palatable alternative to Kazaa without going to iTunes or something.
Anyone know if the artists are getting any of the money from the downloads? It seems like they should be, since it is a valid broadcast license.
The truth is 0.50 a song sounds about right to me now. with expected inflation rates, I would expect it to stay that way for the next 7 years.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Since selling digital music requires no manufacturing and only moderate amounts of hosting and bandwidth, the ongoing costs should be as minimal as the initial production costs.
Anyone who tells you they can't make money selling you digital music at $0.50 each is lying. Movies cost between 10-100 times as much to make as any album of music, yet the studios all recoup their costs (including manufacturing and distribution) from a measly $20 charge.
Delivering militantly anti-commercial music to all two people who care!
You don't "buy" songs. You buy a licence to be able to listen to it at will. $0.99 is still too much for something (the licence) that doesn't cost anything to produce.
I agree that an artist (if he's good) should be able to live from its creations. But a system where Britney Spears can make millions simply by "singing" a 3 minute song is really fucked up.
Society (which means : me) should reward creation but an artist should not be able to control what I do with my CD burner. I don't mind paying to live in a society where I can listen to music but I'm completely against "intellectual property".
It's like magazine subscriptions. Sure they'd like you to pay for the subscription, but at $10 a year for Wired, for instance, it's at the bottom of their list. They want eyeballs, and lots of them, to justify their prices for advertising space to folks like Sony, Chrysler, Nissan, Subaru, BWM, you get the idea...
Real is trying to get eyeballs to justify their advertising space. Their clientele? BMG, Warner, Sony, EMI, you get the idea. You think they make money from kids buying mp3s? No? Well do you think Sony Label is getting free listing spots on the Real Catalog? Don't think so.
If anything the labels are finally wising up. Give the people cheap downloads and eventually they will wind up in a retail store to buy the physical product. Isn't that what alot of us do anyways?
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Zero, one, infinity. The "7 copies" rule just illustrates how divorced from the reality of computing DRM is. DRM is fundamentally, monumentally, stupid. You can have this information....but you can't have this information. STUPID.
Very true. One interestiong thing of note, it seems that the info about what you burned on to CDs is not stored on the computer but on Apple's servers, so therortically apple knows exactly how many times you burned what track.....I wonder how they "share" that info with?
The supreme court has already ruled on the first sale doctine. This allows you for example, to go to russia, buy a bunch of russian CDs, bring them to the US, and sell them all you want, you own them.
The RIAA would like this not to be so, but they abide by the same supreme court rulings as anyone else.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Real is notorious for offering about the world's worst spyware/nagware. If you go to their web site to download the free player, you'll have an awfully tough time finding it. Because of this and their ceaseless marketing efforts, they feel like one of those electronics stores you see in poor areas with bad music blaring through awful stereo systems.
Apple, on the other hand, is classy. You may not want to pay a premium for their stuff, but they don't use the kind of in your face marketing that's so common on the rest of the web.
It's also hard to hate a company that's so innovative, that at least makes an effort to put together something that you, as customers, will enjoy.
Finally, I think Apple gets some slack cut for it through being a slick, polished alternative to Windows. Slashdotters as a class don't like Windows, and the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
D
"The digital stuff is a whole different ball game."
That assertion is the heart of the matter. But, it is only an assertion. WHY is it a whole new ball game? If analog tape tech had progressed to the point that perfect copies were possible, I would give good odds that the assertion would not be made. The courts had decided that tapes were legal, and people were familiar with the right to make a copy.
The assertion is based soley on the premise that digital copies are perfectly reproducible, and therefore a greater threat than lossy tape. I call that premise specious: few people made so many generational copies of a tape that the loss of quality became onerous. The taped audio was adequate.
The assertion of a difference between digital and analog copying is an artificial one designed to reopen the debate about copying we had thought dead as canasta twenty years ago. And it has been a successful one, but not on the merits. Twenty years ago, politicians didn't require the vast amounts of cash they must use today to get elected and stay that way, and twenty years ago the lobbyists were nowhere near as professional and formidable as they are now.
I deny their assertion, so the only argument they have left is this: support us, or we come after you and rip you from office. It's an effective one. L. Ron would be proud.
Wow. I really am convinced that you live in another lala world. You really think that 99 cents is the fair market value? Do you really think that in a fair uncontrolled market that 99 cents would be the happy place that supply and demand meet? The music industry has already been convicted of price fixing and they haven't changed anything. People pay 99 cents because the only other choice is illegal or questionably legal methods.
And how is the iTunes method a viable method? It is only viable if you have another market where you can make money (i.e. iPods and computers). Only in the dot-com age was operating at a loss considered a viable business model.
Well, there are plenty of us that use the iPod simply because it's a great piece of hardware, and when it was first released there was nothing that could touch it.
I dislike a lot of Apple's heavy-handed tactics, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a great device.
And if you want to, you can easily use it just as an MP3 player - you aren't required to convert everything to AAC or buy DRM files from ITMS or even use iTunes. I don't. There's a lot of third party applications and utilities that let you use your iPod on its own or with popular apps such as WinAmp.
Outside of that, if you've been here long enough you'll have noticed a certain element of Apple zealotry has a strong presence on Slashdot now. Which is why you'll often see anything praising Apple modded up and anything critical of Apple modded down. But that's another issue... =)
When I go to real.com using Safari 1.2, I get a page about RealPlayer 10, which makes no mention of, and has no links to, RealPlayer music store or Harmony. When I visit the same URL, spoofing as "Windows MSIE 6.0" (aka "TEH INTARWEB BROWZOR") I get a big promo about Harmony and the .49/song sale.
Pretty sure there's no Mac OS X version of this whole Harmony thing.
Does anybody know how this Harmony thing works? Does it import the songs into iTunes so you can play them in iTunes/sync them to iPod as normal? Or does it make you do a separate sync to put the Real songs on the iPod, restricting you to playing them only on the iPod and RealPlayer?
If your logic was true why do we have 3 strikes laws, and keep conviction records AFTER a person is released...
Yes, why exactly? If we, as a society, see fit to release someone from jail, we should give them at least a reasonable chance to work flipping burgers. Of course sensitive jobs that involve handling prescription drugs or working with children can still do background checks. As it is, ex-cons have little choice but go back to life of crime.
Maybe we should give Real a chance so long as they are playing nice with Helix, OGG and hopefully pushing Apple to lower prices and/or open up their architecture.
You RIAA apologists can whine all you want but the world has changed.
A century ago, there was no major music industry and most musicians were part-time locally based entertainers. Then recording and broadcast technology gave you a few decades of windfall profits and an inflated sense of entitlement.
Now technology has advanced and your party is almost over. we don't need your buggy whips any more. Back then technology gaveth, now it taketh back.
If some musicians decide to not make and record music since there will no longer be the same money in it as there was for those few transition decades, that's their decision.
My guess is that there will always be those that continue and they will find away to make a living at it. It might actually lead to better music in the long run with less of the excesses the current system has brought to the life-styles of the biggest stars.
Copyright is an artifice. I have absolutely no ethical problem with disregarding it. I'm taking nothing away from anybody if I make a copy of something. I may have decided to make the copy as opposed to paying you for a copy you made. You didn't make a sale, that is not my problem.
As far as my moral thermometer is concerned I hardly see it as different than my great-grandfather a century ago studying the design of a chair his neighbor bought from Sears and building his own version of it for his family rather than buying the one from Sears.
In fact, if you are the monopolistic RIAA and have a history of bribing publically elected officials which is pounding more nails into the coffin containing the integrity of the government of my country I feel much better morally about making my own copy than buying one from you.
I don't care if it is against the law. Laws are not inviolable to me. If I roll through a stop sign on a deserted country road, I've broken the law - but I don't care.
If you continue to bribe government officials to pass even more laws for you. I'll break those laws with not one ounce of concern about my ethics.
Aiding an escaped slave was once illegal. Not to say that copyright law is at all comparable to slavery but to indicate how absurd the idea that all laws are just or need to or even should be abided by.
So whine all you want but as I said your party is almost over.
Considering how many Slashdoters buy music through iTunes, I don't think it matters what DRM is used, as long as it's the right company.
You might not believe this, but there is a program called Real Alternative (as well as Quicktime Alternative) that allows you to play RealAudio and video with a third-party client. I installed it the other day...it works, and it doesn't force a reboot like Real's player.
RealAlternative
Even liberal news outlets such as DemocracyNow.org, Fair.org's Counterspin, and Air America Radio have, or still use Real exclusively, leaving me to shake my head at how little the proponents of "freedom" understand the world they are now living in.
This is a poor argument. If you were making this from a manufacturer/producer point of view you would have a reasonable, if vague point. However, from a retailer perspective the cost is *not* the manufacturing cost, but rather the licencing fee, which could possibly be $00.491 and thus higher than the set price.
But, even if this arguement was sound, it is still beside the point:
One way to make sure nobody makes money is to start a price war. The price pressure in digital music is absurd considering nobody is making any money yet. Starting a price war prior to even being profitable is crazy. The inevitable economic outcome is that prices fall to where the few remaining producers can sell their product at a price equal to marginal cost and, quite literally, nobody makes any money. Maybe one or two can stay alive and meet payroll, but no big bucks. This lunacy extends to people expecting it for free thanks to Pepsi and other promotions. I half expect music products to be relegated to consumer incentives passed out with dish detergent rather than purchased as an independent product.
Real's strategy is particularly suicidal (at first blush with little information) because Apple, the incumbent, *doesn't* have to make money. They add value to to their entire product line, hardware, software, and particularly the operating system by owning digital music market share.
Starting a price war with a competitor who doesn't need to make money on the product to survive and has other incentive to stay in the game is a bet against the competitor's unknown tolerance of loss against their inestimable value of other benefits the competitor percieves they gain from the market share. It is impossible to have decent information on this, especially given Apple's legendary secrecy.
I'm sure Real is convinced they are on equal footing and will reap the same rewards by adding value to their entire product line, but their product line is less versatile, less useful, less profitable, and more narrow. It is hard for me to believe 2 things: 1) that Real has as much to gain $$ by acquiring the market share they are willing to pay dearly for, and 2) that Real has the resources to outlast Apple.
On the other hand, only companies like Real and Apple will have long term interest in this market, since nobody who actually wants to make money in a stand alone music play will stay in the game. Perhaps Real just wants to flush out all competitors who aren't convinced the digital music market share will give them indirect benefits which outweigh their cash losses and leave only a few survivors of which Real expects to be one. However, i bet all competitors, probably even Apple, are overestimating the true value here, only time will tell.
Smells like an albatross to me, or perhaps a golden fleece.